Gender and Disability in US State Temporary Disability Systems 1942–1949

Bibliographic Data

ID12178493
AuthorsElizabeth J Remick (0000-0001-8140-2770, Tufts University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume35
Issue3
Pages309-332
Publication date2023-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Policy History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0898-0306 • E-ISSN: 1528-4190
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0898030622000276
OpenAlexW4383554093
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited4

During the 1940s, four US states established a new form of social insurance, Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI), meant to provide wage replacement to breadwinners unable to work due to nonoccupational illness or injury. The first TDI state, Rhode Island, did not initially exclude coverage of pregnancy-related disabilities, threatening the health of the TDI trust fund. Administrators and lawmakers then sought to reduce or eliminate the pregnancy-related disability benefit on the grounds that pregnancy and related conditions were not “real” disabilities. Subsequently, Rhode Island administrators advised lawmakers in California, New Jersey, and New York to exclude pregnancy-related disabilities from coverage. The breadwinner gender ideology animating New Deal social welfare programs intersected with gendered ideas of disability, creating a form of social insurance that excluded or marginalized pregnancy-related disability and further circumscribed women’s social citizenship

Citizenship · Criminology · Demographic economics · Disability insurance · Economics · Ideology · Medical model of disability · Political science · Politics · Pregnancy · Psychiatry · Social security · Social Welfare · Sociology · State (computer science · Wage · Welfare state · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Medicine · Psychology

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